I have putted my dk toon on standby just before the minor buffs few months ago.
So i have played a bit with my reforges and shizzles last weekend and a question poped into my head with i couldn't really get the right answer for it via Siming(i think). So i hope someone have tried this when the buff went live.

So my logic before the question poped was the following - Icy talons are buffed with 10% more haste. So this mean more white swings(ignore the fact that runes will recharge faster for the moment). So more chances for KM procs. So higher uptime on the 2p bonus. What if i stop reforging haste to crit and instead reforge it to hit, so i can have more white hits, thus even more KM procs and higher uptime on 2p bonus on higher stacks?
because as we all know DW is all about mastery for harder hitting HB, FS, SR and FF ticks

Last edited by Deithy; 2014-03-26 at 09:39 AM.

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.

I have putted my dk toon on standby just before the minor buffs few months ago.
So i have played a bit with my reforges and shizzles last weekend and a question poped into my head with i couldn't really get the right answer for it via Siming(i think). So i hope someone have tried this when the buff went live.

So my logic before the question poped was the following - Icy talons are buffed with 10% more haste. So this mean more white swings(ignore the fact that runes will recharge faster for the moment). So more chances for KM procs. So higher uptime on the 2p bonus. What if i stop reforging haste to crit and instead reforge it to hit, so i can have more white hits, thus even more KM procs and higher uptime on 2p bonus on higher stacks?
because as we all know DW is all about mastery for harder hitting HB, FS, SR and FF ticks

Yes, one of the benefits of both haste and hit over the cap increases km procs and therefore 2-set uptime, but it doesn't mathematically work out to be a gain overall. Mastery is the best stat yes, but it's not so good that it's worth giving up 10 crit to get 1 mastery. You simply give up too much crit and gain too little uptime on the stacks. SimC takes this effect into account when creating your stat weights, part of both haste and hit's value is from the 2-set. Still doesn't bump them above crit.

Yes, one of the benefits of both haste and hit over the cap increases km procs and therefore 2-set uptime, but it doesn't mathematically work out to be a gain overall.

Also just to note (as further support to your post), there are diminishing returns on that haste and hit in terms of additional KM procs and additional DPS T16-2pc uptime. The set bonus uptime is also strongly dependent on breakpoints, and unless you know for a fact you'll cross over one, there's really no point in bothering (which the sim would show).

Wondered if it was worth dropping four piece as dw frost to go from 536 shoulders to 567. Asked in the fix my dps threat but it seems pretty dead

This thread is more for general questions, like "Is it better to use soul reaper or a KM obliterate", and specific gear questions are better placed in the fix my dps thread. Since you've tried that, and I'm sad to hear that it's dead;

4-set is worth roughly 3% bonus DPS. If you gain more than that with the shoulder upgrade, it's worth switching, but it's very close. You can try simming yourself with both setups of gear to see which is higher up.

Unholy is within 2-3% of frost DW, and 0.5% of frost 2H, at nearly all gear levels. I would not say there is any one gear level where unholy will match or surpass frost, and I'd say that it pretty much matches frost's dps at every gear level (if you call within 3% matching).

I've mainly played Unholy but found it to be quite difficult to be productive with on Paragons whilst on Garrosh I just felt wrong throwing diseases onto MCs and wasn't sure how to nuke them down under Garry's feet. So as a result, I want to consistently play Frost and try it out. I really really struggled on Garrosh with Frost. I think I did something stupid like 140k on Flex. It was a struggle. It's something I noticed even on other fights is that I can't keep my DPS constant. It spikes occasionally but I'm struggling with rune management/procs etc.I've read Mendenbarr's excellent Frost guide and it was immense for DW and Unholy, but for Frost 2H I really am at a loss. I was half considering switching off Skada and just focusing on the priority versus whether it was yielding numbers or not.

I've been playing DW Frost pretty much ever since Dragon Soul progress and was quite happy with it.
Now however we're progressing Heroic Siegecrafter and I've been wondering, since from here on out it's basically all Single Target fights except for Garrosh P1 (we play Siegecrafter with Mines killed on the lane), wether it's viable to switch to 2H frost for the last 3 bosses.

SimCraft seems very horny for Haste it seems. I just ran a sim where it weighed it far ahead of Mastery for 2H Frost. I took the stat weights from SimCraft, put them into MrRobot then optimized, exported the template to SimCraft and got almost the same DPS back. It then weighed Haste lower.

However, I am considering swapping from Mastery to Haste for my own 542 ilvl DK just to see how far the playstyle ends. I personally prefer the more spammy DW Frost and even Unholy has a nice fast feel to it. 2H Frost just involved too much patience and balancing the Rime/KM/RP element.

SimCraft seems very horny for Haste it seems. I just ran a sim where it weighed it far ahead of Mastery for 2H Frost. I took the stat weights from SimCraft, put them into MrRobot then optimized, exported the template to SimCraft and got almost the same DPS back. It then weighed Haste lower.

The flip-flop is because you made significant changes to the gear, which invalidated the stat weights you generated in the first place. This is not the proper way to use stat weights, because stat weights are only valid near the gear from which they were generated.

Stat weights are like the blue line in this image, and your DPS is like the red line (though not necessarily of the same shape):

They're a localized approximation of your DPS based on your current gear. The larger changes you make to your gear, the further you move away from the local point of approximation (x,f(a)), which means your approximation becomes worse (i.e., you're moving far left or right from the intersection).

Generate weights, change 2-3 pieces (ideally just 1), rerun the weights again, and change another 2-3 pieces based on the new weights. Repeat until convergence (DPS doesn't change significantly).

I've mainly played Unholy but found it to be quite difficult to be productive with on Paragons whilst on Garrosh I just felt wrong throwing diseases onto MCs and wasn't sure how to nuke them down under Garry's feet. So as a result, I want to consistently play Frost and try it out. I really really struggled on Garrosh with Frost. I think I did something stupid like 140k on Flex. It was a struggle. It's something I noticed even on other fights is that I can't keep my DPS constant. It spikes occasionally but I'm struggling with rune management/procs etc.I've read Mendenbarr's excellent Frost guide and it was immense for DW and Unholy, but for Frost 2H I really am at a loss. I was half considering switching off Skada and just focusing on the priority versus whether it was yielding numbers or not.

The gist is, you want to ask yourself, do I have a rime proc, or a KM proc? If the answer is yes, hit HB to spend the time proc or obliterate to spend the KM proc. If no, ask yourself, am I about to cap runic power, or are any of my runes about to cap? If the answer is yes, spend runic on FS, and spend the runes on obliterate. If you have no procs up, and nothing is about to cap, you hit FS. If you can't hit FS, you hit obliterate instead.
That, combined with T1, T5, disease management, CD usage, and soul reaper is really all there is to 2H frost.

Originally Posted by Aaeru

Hi

I've been playing DW Frost pretty much ever since Dragon Soul progress and was quite happy with it.
Now however we're progressing Heroic Siegecrafter and I've been wondering, since from here on out it's basically all Single Target fights except for Garrosh P1 (we play Siegecrafter with Mines killed on the lane), wether it's viable to switch to 2H frost for the last 3 bosses.

Since I'm stuck at work/uni all day lately I've had no time to sim it myself so anyone giving some input would be much appreciated.

Also, when I resimmed for DW single target encounters, simcraft tried to sell me Haste as more powerful than mastery, anyone got a clue what went wrong there?

DW, with equivalent weapons, is still slightly higher than 2H on single target fights. Paragons cleaves down kuchongs, and whichever target you juke before korven. Garrosh cleaves in p1, and for MCs in p2/p3, and in the terrace and jade temple phase. Even with no cleave, DW will do slightly better, but 2H frost is still perfectly fine to play. Just don't expect your DPS to go up much, if at all. See below answers for haste explanation.

Originally Posted by SSHA778

The flip-flop is because you made significant changes to the gear, which invalidated the stat weights you generated in the first place. This is not the proper way to use stat weights, because stat weights are only valid near the gear from which they were generated.

Stat weights are like the blue line in this image, and your DPS is like the red line (though not necessarily of the same shape):

They're a localized approximation of your DPS based on your current gear. The larger changes you make to your gear, the further you move away from the local point of approximation (x,f(a)), which means your approximation becomes worse (i.e., you're moving far left or right from the intersection).

Generate weights, change 2-3 pieces (ideally just 1), rerun the weights again, and change another 2-3 pieces based on the new weights. Repeat until convergence (DPS doesn't change significantly).

Euliat is right, and haste in particular actually gets even worse. SimC reports a bunch of mini haste breakpoints, where the uptime on the 2-set gets significant boosts to uptime, but they only happen with 100% boss uptime. Drop that number down to even 99%, and the breakpoints disappear, so they are not generally worth gearing towards. It's worth considering either running on a non-patchwerk fight (I suggest ultraxion, which is nothing but periodic stuns), or turning off the 2-set, or simply ignoring the haste value simC spits out and assuming that it's about 1 less than crit.

I was talking in general but didnt know it made a difference with either.

I tested unholy/frost disease damage on a dummy. I waited till my feather of jikun was at its max with the 15% str proc and then did the same for frost but frost also has pillar of frost ontop of that to add. That made frosts diseases tick way harder. I probably did something wrong but yeah i was looking at higher damaging diseases for frost.

Originally Posted by Validity

If rogues become shit, all they can become is a different type of shit.